


I Could Feel Your Heartbeat Across the Grass

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, First Kiss, Gay Male Character, Getting Together, M/M, Shotgunning, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Trunks, his bestest buddy from birth.  Goten is hit with the first time he remembers seeing him.  He was four and Trunks was five and they had gone down the mountain to Capsule Corps.  Trunks had been eating a giant, bright green lollipop and he’d been jealous.  His mother would never let him have sweets that early in the morning.  There were plenty of other things to be jealous of (his toys, his money, the fact that his dad wasn’t dead) but he remembers focusing on the lollipop.





	I Could Feel Your Heartbeat Across the Grass

**Author's Note:**

> i've come back to one of my old fandoms because, hey, why not? also i've yet to watch super so this follows the "end of z" canon just about ten years after the buu fight

There’s a creek that runs up behind his house in the mountains and in that creek is a big, flat rock.  This has always been Goten’s rock, from since he was a little kid.  He doesn’t like thinking about how he’s getting way too big for his rock (when he lies on it, he now has to bend his knees) but it’s still his rock.  His place.  He’s lying there, shirt rolled up so his stomach is bared to the sky, face tilted back so the sun beams on it.  It’s hot and the air smells green with summer.  In the trees, the birds are chirp-chirping and the cicadas aren’t screaming yet.

Of course, peace like this has to be shattered.

A shadow falls over him and he feels the familiar surge of ki.  Someone drips water on his exposed stomach and Goten leaps.  He grabs the assailant’s wrist and pulls himself up while twisting his body into a fighting stance.

“I’m not going to that party, no matter what you say.”

Trunks, of course, merely smirks and pulls his wrist free with ease.  Trunks, his bestest buddy from birth.  Goten is hit with the first time he  _ remembers _ seeing him.  He was four and Trunks was five and they had gone down the mountain to Capsule Corps.  Trunks had been eating a giant, bright green lollipop and he’d been  _ jealous. _  His mother would never let him have sweets that early in the morning.  There were plenty of other things to be jealous of (his toys, his money, the fact that his dad wasn’t dead) but he remembers focusing on the lollipop.

“Why not?”

It’s said simply but with enough of a level of snark that Goten has to roll his eyes.  There’s always a party.  Always someone’s parents out for the night, leaving teenagers to do what teenagers do.  Still, quite honestly, Goten isn’t a huge fan of most of his classmates.  Neither, for that matter, is Trunks.  Then again, this is his last summer before university.  They try not to talk about him leaving, just Goten following him the next year.

“I’m not going to have fun.”

Again, he has the audacity to smirk and Goten thinks it’s not fair.  He’s tried imitating Trunks’s smirk in the mirror--not that he’d ever admit it--and he just can’t.  He looks goofy, like a kid playing pretend.  With Trunks, it’s so  _ natural _ and it’s not fair.

“Who says fun is the only option?”

He says it in such a way that brooks no disagreement.  That, no matter what, he and Trunks are going to be at that party.

\--

The party is at someone’s house in the city, which means he has to convince his mother that he can go.  Last time, he tried “oh I’m sleeping over at Trunks’s” which worked until his mom  _ called _ and Trunks’s dad picked up.  Bulma probably would have caught on and played along but Vegeta just bluntly said, “What the hell are you on about?” and the ruse was ruined.

In many ways, Goten is lucky.  His mother was much more restrictive when his brother was growing up.  In fact, Gohan might be a little jealous of him because he thinks Goten is out there living the idyllic teen years he could only imagine.  Which is hilarious in and of itself that smart, perfect Gohan would be jealous of  _ him. _  He never snuck out or lied or drank or did anything that would make him less than ideal.  He doesn’t resent him, most of the time.

They’re eating dinner and his mother seems to be in a good mood.  She isn’t even berating his dad for his terrible manners.  He sucks his cheeks in and plans his attack.

“So, there’s this party tonight,” he says. “And, um, I’m going with Trunks around eight.”

His mother stills, her chopsticks lifted to her lips.  She cocks her head to the side and frowns.

“So you just announce things now?  You don’t even ask.”

Goten curses himself.  His dad eats on, oblivious to the conversation.

“Right.  Um...can I go?”

“No, you can’t,” she says succinctly. “You’ve been out nearly every night this week.”

“Well, it’s summer,” he says and tries to summon his inner Gohan to sound diplomatic. “I can’t stay inside all day with you.”

Bad move.  She looks mad.

“And what’s wrong with that?”

He bites his upper lip to keep his mouth shut, not sure what to do now.  His father intervenes.  He puts his bowl down and swallows the massive mouthful of food in his mouth.

“Aw, let him go, Chi-Chi!”

Goten braces himself for the imminent eruption but it never comes.  Instead, his mom looks between them both and heaves a world weary sigh.

“That’s fine,” she says. “But don’t be out too late.  And don’t drink.  You think I don’t know what happens at these parties but I do.”

He’s half-certain that she’d follow him if given the chance.

“You’re going to stay at Trunks’s house?” she asks.

He nods.  It’s easier just crashing on his bed than trying to make his way up the mountain when he’s drunk.  She nods back, resigned, and the conversation is over.  Goten looks at his dad curiously.  It’s been years and he still doesn’t get him, might not ever get him.  As a kid, he just accepted it and  _ basked _ in his presence like everyone else.  Now, he’s not so sure.  That isn’t a topic to think about for tonight.  Tonight, he’s going to get incredibly fucked up and remember that the world is at peace and he’s a teenager on summer break.

\--

Goten doesn’t know whose house it is but it’s huge, one of those hideous monstrosities rich people build just because they can.  There’s a pool with a waterfall and a table filled with bottles of booze and chips and cake that’s been grabbed more than cut.  The air smells hot and burnt in the air and kids keep throwing each other in and around the pool.  Some of their faces are too red, too sweaty to simply be the heat.

He’s drinking a beer on a pool chaise while Trunks chugs something he mixed himself from a red cup.  Every now and then he wrinkles his nose after he swallows so it must be potent.  It takes a lot to get them drunk, which would be expensive if it weren’t for these parties.  He wonders if this classmate’s parents check the alcohol stash, the food, the power bill, but maybe they don’t care.

The house is over a football field’s distance away but the music is so loud that the bass is making the bottles on the table vibrate.  Trunks sits up and passes the cup to him.

“Try it.”

Goten nearly staggers from the fumes.

“What is it?”

He grins dangerously and that’s all he has to know.  He takes it in one hand and sips it delicately.  He gags as it burns down his chest and he passes it back to Trunks.

“That’s lethal!”

Trunks nods and takes another gulp.  How he can drink that much of it at once is astounding.  Then again, he’s been allowed to drink since he was thirteen--as long as he did it in the house.  Goten’s first taste of alcohol only came last year, thanks to Trunks of course.  He’d pried open his grandfather’s liquor cabinet and made them screwdrivers.

A guy keeps looking at them from across the pool.  The lights reflect off of his face, giving him an eerie, blue-white glow.  Trunks sees him and rises to his feet.

“I’ll be right back.”

He tips back the rest of his drink and makes his way over.  Goten suddenly feels like a little kid left at the fair by himself.  Holding his balloon and watching all the cars drive away.  It can’t be the alcohol yet so he can’t explain the feeling of loneliness that’s grasping at his chest.  He watches Trunks greet the guy and how he puts his hands on his waist, pulls him close.  His hand tightens on his beer can and he feels the aluminum give underneath his hand.

Jealousy?  Is he jealous?

Trunks has always had better luck getting dates, getting people interested.  Goten thought it was a good thing that he was gay so he only had to compete with him when it came to guys but girls  _ still _ flocked to Trunks.

The two of them head off into the darkness and Goten feels something lukewarm running down his hand.  He stares at the beer as it drips from the completely crushed can.  He lets it drop from his hand to the concrete that surrounds the pool.  He wipes his hand on his shorts and stares at the cooler that’s next to the drink table.  He should get another but part of him just wants to stay and wait for Trunks to get back.

It doesn’t take long, which is surprising, and he sees him already on his way back.  He’s holding something pinched between his finger and--oh, it wasn’t a sex thing, then.  Trunks sinks back into his chaise and sucks hard on the end of the joint.

“Here.” He hands it to Goten and then snorts a laugh.

“What?” he asks, too defensively.  It’s lessened over the years but sometimes he feels like Trunks still lords over the fact that he’s a  _ little _ older than him.

“You’ve never smoked.” He says it matter-of-factly and not as a question.

Goten almost disagrees out of spite but he knows that Trunks knows because they know everything about each other.  He looks at the joint held between his thumb and forefinger and the earthy-smelling smoke that curls out from its tip.

“Anything.”

He lifts a shoulder in a shrug.  He watches his lips curl up in a nearly imperceptible smirk and feels Trunk’s free hand curl around his wrist.

“Come here.”

He drags his chaise closer and Goten winces as it scrapes across the concrete.

“What are you doing?” he asks.  He feels drunker than he should rightfully be and is up for anything.  Even sober, it takes very little for Trunks to convince him of anything.

“When I blow out,” he says, “You suck in.”

Drunk and giddy, he giggles at the innuendo.  Trunks looks weirdly determined, though, his eyebrows drawn in and his mouth turned down.  He lets his giggle fade and nods.  He watches him bring the joint to his lips and inhale.  His eyes close and a thought, clearly spurred on by his inebriation, comes into Goten’s head that he looks pretty like that.  He leans forward and opens his mouth a little.  He doesn’t realize how close they are until the smoke starts to move from Trunk’s mouth into his.  He can feel the slight dampness of Trunks’s spit clinging to the smoke as he takes it in.  It tastes like burnt ground but he holds it in.  He thinks it’s kind of like fusion, having to match each other.  Breathe out and in.

He watches the way Trunks’s eyelashes are clumped on his cheeks, making long shadows form on his face.  His lips are fuller than he thought, almost plump, and the way he’s holding his mouth makes his cheekbones stand out more.  His hair is backlit by the lights of the party, making it look like something out of a fairytale.  He realizes he’s been holding the smoke for a bit too long and sends it out of his mouth in a whoosh before he can start coughing.

The party comes back into focus, the music somehow louder than before.  Trunks opens his eyes and Goten blinks, wondering if there was a moment that passed and he missed it.

“So?” he prompts and his voice sounds full and thick with smoke.

“Yeah.”

He laughs and reality shifts back into place.

“You didn’t cough.  I’m impressed.” Trunks grins slow and easy. “I nearly hacked up a lung my first time.  But I didn’t shotgun.”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t know what else to say.  He feels out of place and their faces are still so close.  He realizes that if he puckers his lips, just a little, they’ll kiss and something about that sends a thrill down his spine he can’t explain.  He’s never even entertained having feelings for Trunks before.  He was...Trunks.  His bestest buddy for life.

He pulls back a half inch and when the moment passes, this time he feels it.

\--

It’s so late it’s early and he’s lying on the bed made up for him in Trunks’s room, staring at the ceiling.  In the swirling, gray darkness he sees the glow-in-the-dark planets and stars they put on his ceiling when they were little.  Back then, they’d lie on Trunks’s bed together and pretend to go to space “for real.”  They’d talk about their adventures until their voices were hoarse and they drifted asleep.

They’re too big to share a bed now and it’d be “weird.”  Goten doesn’t think it’s weird.  Weird is lying on on his stomach, attempting to understand his homework, while Trunks hooks up with a guy on his bed.  He says they’re close enough that it’s not weird but Goten always felt.  He can’t place it.  He isn’t good with words or feelings or getting stuff right.  Something felt misplaced like him on the floor wasn’t the way this was supposed to go.  It’s not like the hookups got further than making out, at least when he was in the room, but he still felt.  It felt wrong.   _ He _ felt wrong.

Goten sits up on his knees and watches Trunks sleeping.  He’s spread eagle on the bed, his head tilted at an almost inhuman angle.  His mouth is slack and there’s a little bit of drool leaking from his mouth but he still looks--what?  Attractive?  Goten’s always known that Trunks is good-looking.  He talks about it enough.  He says he can’t help it, that his vanity is inherited.  Once, he said it and Uncle Yamcha said, “Oh, yeah, Bulma was always concerned with her looks” and he said, “Oh, right.  Mom’s that way, too.”  Goten doesn’t know why he’s thinking it  _ now, _ though.  Why he’s thinking it at all.  It’s the shotgunning, the party.  He’s tired.  More than that.

The leaving.

Trunks is leaving soon.  He’ll miss him.  That’s what it is.  The attraction, whatever it was, was close quarters and the sweet-smelling smoke.  He just needs to throw himself down, close his eyes, and sleep.  Sleep has never been an issue.  Trunks has always joked about how he can fall asleep anywhere.  He just has to will it.

He falls back on the bed and squeezes his eyes shut.  He counts his heartbeats until he finally slips into the void of sleep.

\--

His mother stares at him all the next day as if she knows that he smoked weed.  Is it considered smoking weed if you inhale it from your best friend’s mouth?  Goten feels her eyes on him and he wonders what it is.  His father asks him if he wants to train because that’s what he does.  He thinks anything can be solved with punching and, when he was little, maybe Goten had felt the same way.

He looks at his parents and thinks they look happy but--what does he know?  He still remembers being little and his mom being too depressed to get out of bed.  How Gohan carried him around and changed his diapers and tended to her until she came back to herself.  This is what happens when his dad leaves.  He watches him and wonders if it’ll happen again.  Gohan’s told him about how dad had gone in and out of his life as a kid.  There was always a reason, a circumstance, but the result is the same.

Goten loves him for his optimism and his strength but he doesn’t bask like he used to.  He sees him as he is: a flawed person who’s saved the world a couple of times.  Also, watching them is a good distraction from being watched and from thinking about Trunks.

“Did you have fun last night?” she asks.

He shrugs and says, “It was okay.”

Usually when he gives nondescript answers, his mom starts tearing up about her baby becoming a moody teenager.  Instead, she just gives this odd sort of smile.

“That’s good.”

“So, training?”

His mom hits his dad lightly with her wooden spoon and the moment has passed.  Again.  He wonders what’s going on and why he feels like everyone seems to know it but him.

He figures that going to his rock is the best way to deal with this.  It’s still summer and it’s still hot and it’ll probably rain later so he wants to sit and bake in the sun before then.  Up here, in nature, it’s easy to lose himself in the trickling of the creek and the sound of little lizard claws as they skitter up and down the rocks.

Drops of water drip on his forehead and Goten wonders if it’s raining already.  He opens his eyes and it takes a minute for the sudden brightness to fade and for him to see Trunks.  He’s grinning and holding his dripping fingers up over Goten’s head.

“How did I not hear you come up?”

He doesn’t mention that he didn’t even feel his ki signature, which is odd.  He knows Trunks’s energy better than anyone.  They’ve  _ fused _ for Kami’s sake.

“I walk on little cat feet,” he says with a grin. “So.  How was your first taste of the devil’s lettuce?”

He waggles his eyebrows and grins and Goten has to roll his eyes.  He sits up and rests his weight back onto his hands.  Trunks is still standing but, like this, they’re not terribly far off in height.

“It was alright.  And don’t say it too loud.  I’m sure my mom heard and is calling one of those Scared Straight guys right now.”

“No one could scare me straight,” he says and widens his grin.

Goten shakes his head.  Everything is back to normal and that weird, tilted way he felt last night was gone.  He holds his hand out for Trunks to grab and, when he takes it, yanks him down into the creek.

“Oh, you little shit!” He’s laughing, though, as he says it and Goten’s already leapt to the other side of the creek.

They chase each other around the mountain for a while.  Whenever Trunks would get close enough to him, he’d call out some wrestling move and grapple Goten as they spun in midair.  He feels something in his chest unclench that everything is back to normal but part of him still isn’t sure what felt  _ abnormal. _

\--

Goten is pretty sure that he’s spent probably at least sixty-five percent of his life in, at, or around Capsule Corps.  He has his own drawer in Trunks’s room full of spare shirts and pants and he’s seen his best friend’s bedroom go through many transformations throughout the years.  Most recently, he’d helped paint the walls “Ecto Green” which isn’t as garish as it sounds.

“I’m not sleeping with him,” Trunks says.

Goten doesn’t know what he’s talking about, at first.  They’re playing a racing game--because both of them long since agreed that fighting games don’t measure up to the real thing--and he glances at the tiny mushroom Trunks chose as his avatar and back at him.

“Um...who?”

He sighs impatiently.

“The guy from last night.  Weed guy.  I’m not sleeping with him.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

He doesn’t know why he’s telling him this.  What’s it his business who Trunks sleeps with?

“I only sleep with people I like.”

He doesn’t say what he thinks, which is that he must like a lot of guys.  There’s something else, though, something in the way he says it.  Goten gets that feeling that he’s on the outside, looking in.  Like everyone else was handed a copy of the script and he has to ad-lib.

“I’m leaving soon.”

Goten wrinkles his nose because that’s so close to talking about it.  They talk about how it doesn’t matter where Trunks goes because he’s going to work for Capsule Corps.  About how Goten is going to join them and they’ll live together.  Those twelve months between then and now are imaginary.  Unnecessary.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t know what else to say.  The game’s music plays on.

“Goten, I…” Whatever he’s going to say, he thinks better of it and shakes his head.

He’s starting to hate this feeling.  Like everyone knows what’s going on except him.  It keeps happening and keeps happening and he feels like he’s missing something big.

“You hungry?”

“Always.” He answers automatically, but he still feels like Trunks was going to say something else.  The air is heavy with things unsaid and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He follows Trunks to the kitchen and he watches him talk about what they have to eat, and it feels off.  He’s smiling but the smile looks dipped in plastic, like it won’t meet his eyes.  It’s something to do with the boy from last night, those moments.  Goten thinks he might know but he doesn’t want to think about it.  He’s never wanted to think about it.

\--

The phone rings and he knows it’s Gohan.  There’s no caller ID or anything but he always knows when he calls.  The air around the phone is Gohan air.  He doesn’t answer it at first.  Most days, they end up arguing on the phone.  He doesn’t think his brother is  _ really _ jealous but between their mom being less restrictive towards him and his dad being there period, it sometimes comes out.  He thinks they used to be closer before all this but maybe it’s because they were all that they had.

He picks up the phone.  It’s typical.  Gohan asks how he is and shares a new anecdote about something Pan did.  He answers, waiting for--something.

“So you went to a party last night?”

_ And there it is. _

“Yeah.” He pauses, twists the cord between his fingers. “Mom told you?”

“She did.  Said you went with Trunks.”

Goten has to roll his eyes.

“Who else would I go with?”

There’s a pause on the end of the line and he really wishes people would just  _ tell _ him already.  This feeling--that he will not name--that everyone is glancing around is getting stale.

“Did you have fun?” Just like mom.  He’d never say it, though.

“Uh...yeah.”

He waits for what it’s about.  Gohan wouldn’t say this just to make conversation.  There will be other parties.  He isn’t sure why everyone is fixating on this one.  It’s like they know he smoked weed and are trying to get it out of him.

“Just checking.” He hears him laugh. “I still have to look out for you, you know?”

It seems like a deflection but it hits Goten with another memory.  He’s maybe four, five, sitting on the floor of the kitchen.  He can’t remember why he’s crying but it’s The Day.  The day Cell was defeated and the day his dad died.  It’s always a bad day for his mom.  Oftentimes, it’s a worse day for Gohan, who had to see it.  He remembers being upset and crying and feeling lost and hurt and then there was warmth.  Someone holding him, picking him up.  Gohan whispering in his ear and stroking his back.  His big brother, always there for him.

“Yeah.”

There’s another pause and he can picture Gohan in his house, standing at the wall phone, and adjusting the glasses that he (probably) doesn’t actually need.

“Goten, you know you can talk to me about anything right?” he asks, “Anything you’re feeling?”

He has to know about the weed.  There’s no way he would sound this much like a talk in health class if he didn’t.  Goten bites his lip.  If he knows, then his mom knows, and then he only has minutes to live.  Fucking Trunks and his “Come here” and the way he looked blowing the smoke out into his mouth.  How his lips were so soft-looking, so kissable…

Goten snaps to reality and tries to push that thought aside.  Part of him wants to laugh to himself and say “Where did that come from?” but it’s what he’s been trying to deny.  What he doesn’t want to think about.  It’s against the topic at hand, anyway.

“Gohan…” he starts and tries to think of an excuse.

“I just want you to be happy,” he says and maybe it  _ isn’t _ about the weed.

“Um...okay.”

They say their good-byes and hang up and he’s left staring at the walls, wondering what just happened.

\--

He knows what it is.  People can have the script and give him nothing but they can’t hide it for long.  In a way, he’s always known what it is.  What everyone keeps hint-hint-hinting at.  It’s why when the realization comes to him a mile out from Capsule Corps, his initial reaction is “Oh.”  His next reaction is to shove it down.  Down, down,  _ down _ where no one will be able to find, least of all him.

Trunks is his bestest buddy for life.  They’ve been the same person.  They’ve died together.  If he  _ didn’t _ have odd, conflicting feelings about him, it’d be weird.  He always wrote off residual attraction as Trunks’s own vanity lingering after a fusion.  He remembers it being dubbed by Bulma as a “fusion hangover.”  The lingering thoughts and emotions that belong to the other person.

It’s an excuse that’s easier than admitting you’ve fallen for your best friend.  It isn’t the moments of the past few days.  The jealousy of the boy, looking at how beautiful he was when they were shotgunning, the talk of The Leaving.  It’s been building for some time.  Maybe not their whole lives but close enough.

The problem comes from not knowing what to say.  He’s realized it and now what?  Does it really change anything?  Trunks is his friend and Trunks is leaving and it’ll leave Goten alone for a whole year.

At the door he says, “Hey, there’s party.”

It’s nonchalant, disaffected, removed.  Goten looks at him.  He’s right in that there’s always a party, always someone’s parents out of the house.  He supposes that Trunks has to go find a party since he can’t throw one here.  Kids at school talk about his family.  Boys say they’ve called his house only for Vegeta to pick up and scare the shit out of them.  Goten’s convinced he only bothers with picking up to intimidate people.

“Okay.”

They stare at each other for a moment and he briefly wonders if Trunks is one of the people with the script.  If he hit the realization but.  That’s too perfect.  Too cheesy.  Realizing their feelings for one another before he goes off to college.

“Tonight?”

He nods. “Yeah.  If you wanna go.  S’not like there’s anything else to do.”

Trunks shrugs and he’s--not that good an actor.  Something’s bothering him.  The fake smile from before is back.  Goten’s worried, suddenly, that looking at him will have him blurting out his feelings that came as suddenly as his realization minutes earlier.  After feeling out of sync for so long, he suddenly feels like he’s being dragged too fast.  The summer will end and Trunks will leave and he’ll be left behind with...what?  Instead, he puts on his own fake smile and says that he’ll go to the party.

He doesn’t know this kid either but the house is even bigger than the last one.  Capsule Corps is the biggest property in town but it’s a sprawling complex.  These houses are mansions in the traditional sense.  Someone made tequila JELL-O shots and he watches Trunks gulp them down like he has nothing to lose.  Goten doesn’t really want to drink but he holds a beer can anyway.  It’s sweating on his hand and every now and then he has to shift his fingers to keep them from getting too cold.

Trunks is stripped to his underwear in the pool, his hair slicked violet and the lights make him look supernatural.  A guy from their class comes up and slides his hand between his legs to pinch his ass.  Goten’s hand tightens on the can.  He knows the guy’s face but not his name.  He’s sure if Trunks were sober, he’d drown him for it but instead he just laughs.  The laugh is just as synthetic as his smile.  Goten pops the top of his beer.

Several drinks later, Trunks has left the pool.  He’s drunk and smells like chlorine and he keeps grinning widely.  The two of them are in the kitchen.  Goten’s up on the counter, drinking his fifth beer, while Trunks roots through the fridge.

“I forget not all houses stock food like ours,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “There’s nothing here.”

He pulls back from the fridge and shuts the door, holding one of those plasticky slices of cheese.  Goten’s vision is starting to blur on the edges and he should stop drinking but.

Trunks has shaken out his hair and the wet strands hang in his face.  He’s slick and wet and his underwear is soaked and he has a pilfered towel draped over his shoulders.  He’s looking back at Goten and, gently, he takes the can from his hands.  Places it on the counter.

“Those guys don’t mean shit to me,” he says.

“You only sleep with guys you like,” he intones, voice flat.

“Yeah.  And I’ve never slept with the guy I love.”

He watches Trunks strip the plastic covering off and toss it to the floor.  Watches him fold it into a square and pull away little strips of cheese.  Without thinking, Goten opens his mouth.  Trunks takes the piece he had lifted to his lips and reaches out to feed him.  He feels the cold press of the cheese on the flat of his tongue and his teeth scrape the back of Trunks’s finger as he pulls it out.

“Do you get what I’m saying?” he asks.  He peels off another strip of cheese and puts it in his own mouth.

The cheese tastes fake and like cardboard in his mouth but Goten swallows it.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he says.

It isn’t quite right.  He knows Trunks has to go to college and he knows that it isn’t really what he wants to say but the realization came too quickly.  It came too quickly and his mouth is coated in shitty cheese and he’s feeling the beer in his knees.

“I don’t have to.”

It’s said simply enough but he knows it’s not that easy.  He needs a degree for the board at Capsule Corps to have him on.  It doesn’t matter who his mom or grandfather is.  They see him as the delinquent son who parties too much and overuses social media.

“Yes, you do.”

“I can wait,” he persists, his eyes intense. “Take a gap year.  We can travel.”

It sounds like he’s been thinking about it in all the time they haven’t been talking about it.

“We…”

“Yeah.  Us.  On holidays and stuff.  When you aren’t in classes.” His words are slurred, blunted by tequila but it doesn’t dampen the determination in his eyes. “I’ve thought about it.  You.  Us.”

There it is.  The cheesy moment, brought on by actual cheese.  Sitting in a stranger’s kitchen at some hazy, booze-fueled summer party, he’s said it.  Nearly said it.

He’s aware of how little Trunks is wearing, how his body is close to his.  He feels heady, embarrassed.  He’s said too much and not enough.  Talking shouldn’t be this hard.  Not when you’ve been the same person, not when you’ve spent almost every moment together growing up.

“I’ve been thinking about it for months,” Trunks says. “But I didn’t say anything, y’know?  Didn’t want to...ruin us.”

“Ruin us,” he echoes.  And then nods. “I realized it this afternoon.”

They aren’t naming it specifically but he thinks that they don’t have to.  Trunks draws closer and places his hands on his waist.  Goten kicks his legs a little and gently puts them around his waist to pull him closer.

He doesn’t register the kiss at first until he tastes tequila and lime JELL-O.  Honestly, the entire kiss tastes awful between the booze mixing and the way he still feels the cheese coating his tongue but he couldn’t ask for anything more perfect.  Trunks’s hands are still cold from the pool and the fridge and he cups his face gently as he kisses him.

The kiss just makes sense.  It feels like something they should have been doing their entire lives.  Another memory.  It’s just after Buu was defeated and there was a party at Capsule Corps.  The two of them were running around, playing, and he heard Bulma say, “How are they so in love?  They’re too young.”  He thought she meant Gohan and Videl but his beer-saturated mind has conjured that she really meant the two of them.

They separate and Trunks blinks his eyes and licks his lips.

“I wanna do that again tomorrow when I’m not drunk,” he says.

Unsure what else to say, Goten bobs his head and says, “Yeah.”

\--

He doesn’t have a hangover when he wakes up.  Goten thinks that it might be part of his alien biology or something but no matter how much he drinks, he wakes up okay.  He feels like this isn’t a good argument to decry against teen drinking if there aren’t even any physical side effects that he and Trunks would suffer from.

Goten rolls onto his back and is aware of a slight flare of ki before he’s pinned down with his arms above his head.

“Little kitten feet?” he asks.

Trunks grins brazenly. “You know it.”

He tips his face up to kiss him but then makes the mistake of inhaling.

“Dude, your  _ breath.” _

“Try smelling yours.”

Fast forward to them eating breakfast.  Goten isn’t sure what time it is but it doesn’t really matter.  Everyone at Capsule Corps sleeps in.  Usually, he won’t see Trunks’s parents until noon.  Even little Bra sleeps in.  It’s so different from Goten’s house where everyone rises early.  Even on days when Goten doesn’t have to go to school, he’s up before eight.  He knows Trunks is doing him a favor, getting up with him, but he wonders if he even got to sleep last night.

“So.”

Trunks is making a package of bacon and has a carton of two dozen eggs open next to it on the counter.

“Yeah.”

“I still mean it,” Trunks says. “About the gap year and stuff.  About us.”

“I meant it, too,” he says even if he thinks he didn’t say all that much.

They stay quiet for a moment, the only sound is the sizzling bacon.  Trunks is frying a rasher at a time so the kitchen already smells hot and meaty.

“So...are we boyfriends now?”

He feels silly when he says it but Trunks taps his chin with the spatula.

“I guess so, yeah.  I guess I hadn’t thought of that--just the feelings and shit.” He frowns. “I’m kinda bad at it.”

“I’m not so hot at it either.”

He steps away from the stove and leans down to where Goten’s sitting to kiss him.  He doesn’t say that it’s the one time that he’ll get to lean down since he’s taller now.  They separate when the door to the kitchen swings open.

“Are you cooking, sweetie?”

Trunks jerks his head up and Goten looks to see his parents in the doorway.  They’re both wearing pajamas and look bedraggled and tired.

“I thought you were asleep,” he says as if it explains the kissing, the bacon, everything.

Bulma shakes her head. “We were in bed but we weren’t sleeping.”

He pulls a face. “Mo-om!”

She grins and Goten’s glad  _ his _ parents aren’t that open about that.  He watches Bulma ruffle his hair and Vegeta sniff around the stove and wonders if they had even noticed the kissing.

“So,” she says. “You two finally figured it out?”

He thinks back to his childhood memory and maybe she  _ was _ talking about them.

“Yeah, we--dad, that’s our bacon.”

“And who paid for it?”

“Uh, mom?”

Goten looks at the scene and then back at Bulma.  He smiles sheepishly and she moves to take a turn in ruffling  _ his _ hair.

\--

Goten’s back at his rock and he can’t help but feel like things haven’t changed.  There isn’t a looming Leaving anymore but everything else is back to normal, the earth is spinning on its axis again.  It seemed that he was the deciding factor on Trunks taking a year off.  He’s smart enough that it doesn’t matter  _ when _ he goes to school.  He wonders how long he fought himself over that but it was in the script he wasn’t given.  The one everyone else had where them getting together was a surprise to no one.

He closes his eyes and listens to the rushing water.  In the distance, he can hear a pterodactyl screech.  The summer no longer seems like a ticking time bomb.  He can bake in the sun and smell the green and not worry about what he had been afraid to talk about.   _ Everything _ he’d been afraid to talk about.

This time there’s no sneaking.  He feels his ki--warm, familiar--before a shadow falls over him.  Goten opens his eyes to see Trunks looking down at him, grinning.

“You need to be less predictable,” he says.

“I like my rock.”

He sits up and scoots back to let Trunks sit with him.  Idly, he picks up a stick and scrapes it on the rock.  He dislodges the crushed body of a bug, shiny and green-black and flicks it into the water.

“I’m always the last to know,” Goten says with a sigh.  It’s true.  Even his dad had it figured out before he did.

“It’s not...not knowing.  It’s not admitting.  It’s different.” Trunks tips his head to the side. “And it took me a while, too, you know.”

Sometimes he feels like it’s when they’re little and Trunks made everything into a competition.  He’s about to say so but then Trunks reaches forward and takes his hand.  He brings it to his lips and kisses his knuckles.

“But we figured it out now.”

“Yeah…”

He smiles at it and the immediate realization that he can kiss Trunks whenever he wants to now.  The moment he drops his hand, Goten leans in and replaces it with his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> vertigoats.tumblr.com


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